Chapter 10, the twenty-seven moments of Chongzhen's four years (10)

The tenth moment: the confusion of a rookie in the countryside

The northern border of the Ming Empire adjacent to the grassland, Xuanfu Town, Huailong Road East Road, Baoan Prefecture, Shunxiang Fort

A remnant sun hung obliquely in the sky, sprinkling the bloody sunset on the reckless earth, and as far as the eye could see, it was all a desolate and desolate scene—the canals had dried up, the seedlings had withered, and the crops had fallen to death everywhere; Scattered emaciated and rickety children and ragged women toiled in the fields to make ends meet, but the harvest in these years was not enough to sustain even the bare minimum of what they needed.

As a border town adjacent to the grassland, Xuanfu Town's land yield per mu could not be compared with that of the mainland, but all kinds of harsh taxes and miscellaneous taxes were half a penny -- according to the absurd system formulated by Zhu Yuanzhang, the guards of the Ming Dynasty generally had to support themselves, and they had to pay grain for their tuntian every year, but even the fields themselves had already been robbed by the landlords and gentry, and they often had to pay land taxes even though they had no land, and their lives were worse than ordinary people's (but in this case, the government could not let those landless military households make something out of nothing and hand over the land endowments. If you force it, you can only provoke a mutiny, and you still can't get anything, maybe you have to take your own life, so the usual practice is to just accumulate arrears year after year, and it will become a bad debt). In addition, the rogue bandits, the burning and looting of the Later Jin army and the Mongols, and the even more fatal drought for many years, made all the soldiers and civilians struggle on the verge of death -- if it is explained that the blood transfusion of the Later Jin merchants to the Later Jin was a desire for profit, then the acquiescence and distribution of fertilizer by the defenders of the border towns were helpless to maintain survival.

The cold wind from the Mongolian plateau is always mixed with countless pieces of sand, blowing people as if their faces are cracked. Against the overwhelming wind and sand blowing from the northern desert, Wang Dou, the commander (defensive officer) of Shunxiang Fort, who had just led his troops to repel a group of rogues, walked silently on a barren and grassy road with a team of tired and haggard sergeants who were brightly dressed and armoured, as well as a few mule carts carrying booty.

Walking on the withered grass and yellow sand everywhere, looking towards both sides of this road, Dongjiazhuang and Xinzhuang, which were forced to evacuate the people and burned down on their own initiative when the Tatars entered the Kou last year, are still in ruins, unable to repair at all, and even some dry bones that no one can bury can be seen sporadically. There is also Wang Dou's old village Jingbian Fort before entering Shunxiang Fort as a defensive officer, brick by brick, all of which were built by Wang Dou with his own hands, I remember that he raised a lot of pigs and sheep, dug fish ponds, built irrigation canals, and spent countless efforts but now they are all destroyed in the continuous war......

-- As a time-traveler who has lit up his military skills and has a talent for war, Wang Dou has fought bravely in the past two years, and his victories are enough to boast in front of the world. However, he had to deal with a lot of enemies from all walks of life: after the battle, the Jin army still had Mongolian horse thieves, and after the defeat of Mongolian horse thieves, there were also rogue bandits in the interior -- the Shaanxi peasant army that swept the world in the future would come to Xuanfu from time to time in the past two years

Indeed, the border town of Xuanfu has always been barren, far less rich than the Central Plains, and there is not much wealth to grab. However, the military families here have been neighbors of the Tartars for generations, and most of the young and strong are accustomed to fighting, and can fight more than the peasants in the interior who have just laid down their hoes, so it has become an excellent place to recruit troops in the eyes of the leaders of all stripes...... If it was just that some poor military households couldn't survive the hard life and went to thieves, Wang Dou might not have anything to do with himself, and he had the right to go to other places to "work". But the problem is that every time any mainland rogue comes to Xuanfu to recruit people to join the gang, they never forget to spoil the place by the way......

Although the lives of people in troubled times are as tenacious as weeds, as long as the ground is quiet, the refugees can naturally return to their hometowns, but even if the whole family is safe and sound, they can only starve after returning - the Xuanfu Biansai was originally a place where the people were extremely miserable, and the military disasters in the Chongzhen period spread, and the chaos came down repeatedly, and the ploughing cattle, donkeys and mules of the rural people were killed and robbed, the houses were burned, and the property was naturally lost. Even if these dispossessed people escaped the slaughter and abduction and returned to the village safely, they had neither farm tools nor seeds, nor seeds, nor food, nor would they have survived the next grain harvest without government relief.

However, how could the Ming court, which had all kinds of late symptoms during the Chongzhen period, still have the ability to help the people? Even if the emperor was not deceived and the cabinet was also interested in dealing with the aftermath, judging from the appearance of the Beijing imperial court now going on fire in all directions and making smoke everywhere, even if there is some relief, it is a drop in the bucket.

―― In front of him are the fierce and fierce Tartars, behind which are endless rogues, such a desperate situation, Wang Dou can barely support it is the limit.

When the military disasters on the earth were connected, the god of the Xiaoice River did not forget to bring all kinds of bad luck to the people of Xuanfu: drought, locust plague, wind and sand, one after another. The young and strong men in the border areas had already suffered heavy casualties in the southern invasion of the Tatars and the poison of the rogues, and many fields could only be cultivated by the elderly, women and children

However, the imperial court continued to collect taxes regardless of the lives of the people, and even in such a catastrophic year, it still refused to reduce or reduce it......

Alas, it is too difficult for me to save this desperate era by myself, even if I just want to save the people around me.

Thinking of this, Wang Dou couldn't help but sigh melancholy and looked back at the warrior who was following behind him. There was a silent cry of helplessness in his heart.

It's hard

Although Wang Dou was the greatest capital to settle down in the troubled times, the Shunxiang Army he personally established withstood the test of enemies from all walks of life, and could not only entrench in the fortress and hold on, but also be able to defeat the Jurchen Tartars head-on in the field battle, which can be called the first-class elite and strong soldiers of Xuanfu. But no matter how fierce and warlike an army is, at least it needs to be well fed and clothed to fight...... However, his Shunxiang army was not the Guanning army in western Liaoning, not only did he want to get a military salary of several million taels of silver every year, but he had to bring his own grain and ordnance to fight, and occasionally he could get some help from above.

Therefore, Wang Dou's Shunxiang army not only had to be self-reliant, but even had to pay all kinds of harsh taxes to the top upside down, which was really unreasonable

However, even in such an embarrassing situation, Wang Dou did not want to rebel for the time being - although the Ming Dynasty had shown all kinds of terminally ill appearances, but in the end it was still a behemoth, and the rebellion was only three points certain, but it would take nine deaths...... The survival rate of the rogues is obviously not as high as that of the officers and soldiers.

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However, the expenses needed to support this elite army under Wang Dou's men must not be counted on by relying on the little yellow and deflated crops in the field, and it is impossible to allocate much money from above. The border town was in a continuous war, and Wang Dou could hardly do business if he wanted to, even if it was a treasonous business of "Tong Tartar", it was divided and monopolized by several Jin merchants, and outsiders could not intervene at all. And Xuanfu does not rely on canals and the sea, so it is extremely difficult to develop business.

At present, the only hope that Wang Dou and Shunxiangbao can get out of their financial crisis is the silver mines buried underground -- in the territory of Baoan Prefecture in Xuanfu, in the later Zhuolu County, there are the glorious Xiangguang silver mine and the Shangjinggou silver mine in Luanzhuang, with a total reserve of nearly 300 tons.

Wang Dou had already sent someone to see it, but now these places are still deserted, and the silver mine is naturally still unknown to anyone, so in the process of enclosing those two places to open a silver mine, there are no obstacles for the time being. But the problem is, not to mention that after the silver mine is opened, with Wang Dou's identity and background, under the ingenuity of various powerful officials and eunuchs, I am afraid that he may not be able to keep this financial resource. Even the mining itself, is unpredictable - those silver mines are not open-pit rich mines, the mining cost is extremely high, not only need to dig at least a dozen zhang deep well, even after the mine, it is necessary to first use the mill to scoop the ore very fine, and then put it into a vat with water to stir hundreds of times, select the essence of the meat, and finally put it into the silver furnace for smelting, using the "ash blowing method" to purify the net silver...... The manpower and material resources consumed during the period are not a small amount, and mining also requires a lot of strong labor, which is almost tantamount to making things worse for Shunxiang Fort, which has lost a large number of strong men due to the connection of military disasters.

Fortunately, there have been several groups of displaced people who have recently poured into Baoan Prefecture, most of them have no food and clothing, and it is very good to be lucky to find a job as a coolie, most of them have begun to sell their sons and daughters, and even rob and steal for a living, and in the end I am afraid that they will evolve into mob rogues - the above truth, the magistrates at the end of the Ming Dynasty basically understood, so they were so anxious that they jumped to their feet, Wang Dou took the opportunity to stand up, took over the work of resettlement and management of these displaced people, and used this as a reason to knock the government and the gentry a sum of money, Only then did they get the labor and start-up capital to mine the silver mines: these displaced people were willing to work whatever they wanted, as long as they had a bite to eat. When the young men were recruited, the opportunity for the homeless to become a mob was nipped up.

At present, Wang Dou sent people to secretly mine all the mines, and they had already begun to produce silver, and the first batch of silver minted by himself had also reached the hands of the soldiers--of course, it was impossible to hide such a big movement as mining and smelting. Although after this windfall, I don't know what trouble will happen next, but before it attracts the coveting of those greedy gentry, it can finally make Wang Dou and his subordinates have a fat year.

Alas, the purpose of opening up his own financial resources was to make up for the shortage of supplies for the imperial court and the so-called "drifting" of officials at all levels, but he did not hear of a precedent for the army to maintain its combat effectiveness by engaging in business and mining. In the early days of reform and opening up, when Comrade Xiaoping asked the army to try to be patient, he certainly allowed the army to do business, but it was only to reduce expenditures, but he did not dare to cut off the supply of the army. Wang Dou thought with resentment.

With such a chaotic thought, Wang Dou led his troops into Shunxiang Fort, full of dilapidated streets and houses, as well as pedestrians with vegetables on their faces. There are not many brick and wood houses in the whole fort, and the rest of the houses are all rammed earth walls and straw shed roofs, and a few of the thatched houses are painted with chalk on the outside, that is, the shop pù - a poor country like Xuanfu Bian Town, if it can have such a commercial level, it can be regarded as prosperous.

Among them, there is a shop that sells groceries from the north and south, which seems to have just arrived at a batch of relatively rare fresh goods, attracting many seven aunts and eight aunts who love to watch the excitement to come and watch, chattering and commenting, and the parents are short and chattering endlessly...... Wang Dou was originally just curious to take a few looks, but he accidentally noticed something on the shelf, and in an instant, five thunderbolts thundered in his mind

A moment later, Wang Dou left the grocery store with a box of cigarettes sold from Shandong, full of confusion, and set out on the road home again.

“…… Wen Dengxiang? What brand is this? Wait, it doesn't matter what this cigarette brand is. What really matters is that during the Chongzhen period of the Ming Dynasty, at such an early age, there were already cigarettes in China? I thought at least the late Qing Dynasty or even the Republic of China."

Playing with the cigarette box in his hand, Wang Douyue thought about it in confusion, vaguely feeling that the world might not be the same as his cognition.

What Wang Dou didn't know was that his wife Xie Xiuniang was looking at a newly bought small mirror like a treasure at this time, and she was so happy that she was pretty......

-- In the countryside of Xuanfu, where information is blocked and transportation is difficult, Wang Doutun, who is currently struggling to survive, is still ignorant and at a loss for the information of other traverser forces. In the well-informed and prosperous trade port of the south, other fledgling traversers have already seen the great changes brought by the pioneers to the world, and they feel deeply frightened and wary......

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